Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Ahhhh, October

Another October, my favorite month. It seems like Christmas will be here before I find time to write my "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" post, so I'm going to stop thinking about it and write what's current.

In fact, I'd like to get back to popping off a paragraph a day, instead of tackling heavy content that takes me a week or writing and editing. I'm thinking of taking part in NaBloPoMo November, just to shake off my self-induced sense of obligation to be smart and funny and prolific.

In the meantime, I have a new camera lens, and yesterday I took a walk, and here's what I snapped, in a mile:

Berries. Probably poisonous.

Deer. We saw one next to the house tonight that was so big that I half-wondered if someone's mule hadn't gotten loose.

Hedge apples. Did you know folks gather these up and put them in their cellars and such to rid spiders?

They look like brains. No wonder the spiders leave.

I inadvertently planted giant marigolds this year. I thought I planted giant marigolds last year, but they were just "big" marigolds. These were GIANT marigolds, that created a 3-foot tall hedge of blossoms around the garden all summer. Some of them were as big as hedge apples. They were gorgeous...and they disguised a weird sickly garden. Too much rain followed by too much dry this year. Tomatoes rotted before they ripened. Creepy.

The last tomato of the year. See? How it rot-riped?

The last shot is for our friend Michael, in Nashville. It's going to be a harsh winter, it seems.